The Question of Antibiotics in Animal Ag

The Question of Antibiotics in Animal Ag. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.

Animal agriculture is under a great deal of pressure and scrutiny these days. Just about every aspect of the industry has been called into question by groups looking to do away with it altogether. One of those areas is in the use of antibiotics. Dr. Bill Barton, Idaho State Veterinarian looks at the basic question of whether or not antibiotics are necessary for dairy and beef cattle.

BARTON: Well, you can put it pretty simply. Animal agriculture has and always will stand on the belief that healthy animals make safe food, wholesome food. There are certainly times when disease affects livestock and producers should work very closely with their veterinarians in order to appropriately diagnose and then treat the animals for those diseases. That will do several things. It will decrease the effects that the disease has on the producers herds and it will at the same time, if we have adequately diagnosed the disease and treated it appropriately, it will minimize the potential for bugs to develop a resistance to a certain antibiotic and it will improve food safety.

So what is the right thing to do?

BARTON: There is lots of talk about this as you can imagine but there is a lot of mis-information out there as well by those who would like to see animal agriculture eliminated and us moved to plant-based protein sources.

There will of course be a lot more discussion on this important issue.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.